Virtue

Here is, perhaps, something all Christians can agree on. The highest good is to honor God in all you do. Few of us manage to do that by more than fits and starts, none of us manages to do it full time, but that is the ideal.

As it turns out, honoring God in our actions works out to our own good. Some people may question this.  If we are patient and kindly rather than harsh and cruel, generous rather than grasping and greedy, honest and forthright rather than shifty and deceptive, how will we ever get ahead in life that way? I suppose the answer depends upon whom you are trying to get ahead of. The leading runner in the rat race is still a rat.

When we practice virtue, the advantage to us is that we become in the process something beautiful, little signs or harbingers of God's kingdom, clues to the clueless that there is something beyond this life and its cares; we are people "in the world but not of it." We see the world in a truer light. Its pains and woes are lighter burdens because we do not take this world as seriously as we would otherwise. We have another country and a better one. We are citizens of heaven; as for this sorry world, we are simply strangers passing through.

What has this to do with the cause of Christian unity, the subject of this blog? Here is what I propose as the connection. If we look around and see people trying to bring God's kingdom down into the world this way, we should be smart enough to recognize them as our brothers and sisters, even if they belong to other churches and their bishops do not agree with our bishops. They are doing what we are doing, or should be doing, and for the same reason. There is no such thing as Baptist generosity or Orthodox mercy; it all proceeds from Christ. The person who does the right thing, the heavenly thing, does so in his personal relationship to God. Else, what is his motive? If he does it because someone else told him to, is he not doing it for men's approval, thus a hypocrite? Thus I say that whenever you see real Christian virtue, the thing has been done in God. Denomination doesn't figure into it.

When we see people practicing godly virtues, regardless of the church denominations of the doers, we should thank God for it and see them as our brothers and sisters, or perhaps our betters. Because this is something that transcends questions of denomination, it may serve as a point of unity among the separated brethren. We can build on this understanding by praising virtue wherever it is apparent and doing practical things like supporting fruitful ministries across denominational lines. When we recognize that we have some operations in the Spirit going on in common, it can only heighten our appreciation and recognition of our common patrimony as Christians and our glorious shared future.